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Fiscal cliff: All talk, no deal-making

The lack of action on the most pressing fiscal matters of the year can also be seen in the thin congressional calendar. The House is scheduled to vote on an intelligence bill, a short-term government funding bill this week — Ryan will support it, a top Republican said Monday — and then leave town until after the Nov. 6 election. There won’t be an October session, aides in both chambers say.

Even the most optimistic players involved in the circular two-year-old debt talks can only hope that they might put in place yet another process for reaching an agreement.

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Such plans could make the deficit worse before making it better. Lawmakers — including folks at the top of the leadership rung — talk about turning off a pending round of automatic budget cuts and extending most or all of the Bush tax rates for individuals — policies that would widen the gap between the money the government takes in and the money it spends.

It gets worse: Washington journalist Bob Woodward published a book this week detailing the decline of last year’s debt talks that reveals even more about the distrust that colored the negotiations among Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans.

On top of that partisan distrust, political leaders in both parties are hamstrung by their followers. The rank and file on both sides aren’t willing to give what it would take to make a deal.

In one episode recounted in Woodward’s book, Senate Democrats lit into White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors for pointing out that raising taxes on millionaires — no matter how much they were taxed — would never close the deficit without adding in cuts to cherished entitlement programs. Similarly, tax hikes are a nonstarter for Republicans.

Stuck in neutral would be an improvement in Washington. And despite all the lip service paid to the debt at the conventions, no one spent much time trying to fix the problem.

Democratic debt commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles held an intimate reception at his North Carolina home during the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., but there weren’t any Republican heavyweights at the table. Ryan, the likely linchpin of any deal that House Republicans would sign onto, doesn’t have the political latitude to endorse a deal now that it would probably secure Obama’s reelection.

The senators in the Gang of Eight are working to forge a plan that would create more time and space for a long-term deal, according to sources familiar with their talks.

“The best way to view the group of eight, or the way they’re viewing it, is more like a life raft. They don’t really know when it’s going to have to be deployed, but at some point, this tidal wave of debt is going to catch up with us and the markets are going to react,” said an aide to one of the senators. “It’s hopefully something that, when that time comes, will be ready to be deployed.”

Several sources said the lawmakers are working on legislative language that could be used to set up a process that would force Congress to act to diminish the debt. The last time the two parties came to such a deal, they set up the automatic spending cuts — the sequester — that many lawmakers are now scrambling to undo before they kick in at the start of next year.

Readers' Comments (50)

Republicans in Congress are in a bind - how can they back down from their brainless sequestration meat-axe approach to budgeting, without admitting that it was just a P.R. move to show how "serious" they were about their fake debt-ceiling "crisis"?

And yet, what were they thinking when they voted for it? That by threatening to shoot themselves in the foot, they would get some bargaining leverage? That didn't happen, and now their bluff has been called, they are strangely reluctant to pull the trigger.

Obama is a clown acting as a President. We needed leadership to fix our economy and the big budget items. What we have gotten is zero leadership from him. Everything is political to him and the country's 23,000,000 unemployed/underemployed be damned. He isn't serious.

Question: Which is the bigger lie?

1) Bill looking directly into the tv camera and saying, "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky."

2) Bill looking directly into the tv camera and saying, "Obama did not take $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare."

3 Obama looking directly into the tv camera for 4 years and selling "Bad is Good and Good is Bad" to all of us instead of solving the jobs problem for 23,000,000 of our fellow citizens. George Orwell was right about the concept of his book 1984, he just didn't know "Big Brother" (government) wouldn't hit until 2009.

As to Medicare and Obamacare, Obama learned a trick from Bill Clinton. In 1996 Bill got a Medicare saving program passed. It called for a 17% reduction in primary care physician reimbursement rates for Medicare to take effect 2 years after he was out of office. So since 2002 there has been a doctor fix of about over 200 billion dollars passed each year because Congress knew if the reductions would occur doctors will stop servicing Medicare patients. FAST FORWARD TO 2010 and Obamacare passes with 716 billion dollars in savings in provider reimbursement to go into effect in 2016 after he is out of office. So, Obamacare didn't deal with the "doc fix" of 1996 and doubled down on the same flawed thinking. We are in deep trouble because democrats and republicans will not lower reimbursement rates in 2016 because they know they will drive doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and others out of the Medicare market and into bankruptcy.

So when people say Obama is a leader for us in a capitalistic society I have to either laugh or cry. Cry because those who have a job or are satisfied with the meager welfare checks delivered don't seem to care that the 23,000,000 out of work don't want to wait another 4 years for the fantasy of "bottom up and middle out" economics to create private sector jobs with marxism. Or I laugh because he Obama is elected, our economy will be a joke in a couple more years.

As to the Senate Gang of 8 that has patted themselves on the back about the job they are doing, until they get Harry Reid to have a vote in the full Senate on their proposal they have been working on for 2 years, then they are no more than a coffee klatsch. Senator Conrad's leaving the senate this year and is probably ashamed of his party and the President for zero leadership for never passing a budget in the senate or voting on an honest proposal to get control of our out of control spending.

As Bob Woodard stated in his interview witho Diane Sawyer The President demonstrated a "Gap" in leadership during the debt ceiling talks in 2010. Talks that as one Democrat aide stated was "a crisis as serious to the world as the "Cuban Missle Crisis"

"A Gap in leadership" speaks volumes as to how this President and the Liberal/Progressives view the welfare of this country and it's citizens.

A man that agrees to an accord to solve the problem at hand, only to change his demands within hours after the agreement was reached. And you wonder why nothing is getting done because of distrust?

This man says "Trust Me" for another 4 years, that has to be the biggest joke in DC!

Yes The Speaker of the House had some culpability in the mess by not being able to control his party members but would you be able to sell an agreed upon program to your members in the afternoon only to have the agreed upon demands changed hours later.

I believe the statement "A Gap in leadership" is far to generous a statement for a man that stuck a knife in the back of the people he was working with, but I guess he forgot he wasn't in Chicago at the time.

This article starts off with a lie and just goes downhill from there. Obama does not WANT to fix the debt crisis. He does not CARE about the debt crisis - except as a campaign issue.

This debt crisis cannot be fixed as long as Obama is in office. He has a perverted view of how the economy works - he firmly believes that we can spend our way to prosperity.

Our current economic troubles are not an insoluble problem that was left with Obama by Bush. It was a recession that should have been fixed two years ago. Reagan fixed a much worse economy in only two years. The fact that we are in an even worse mess than we were when Obama took office is due to Obama's misguided policies.

Reagan showed how it is done. The government must cut taxes and reduce regulation to encourage the growth of new business and the expansion of existing ones. This will foster an economic boom that will put more people to work, paying taxes, and increase the amount of money coming into the treasury while reducing the amount that is needed for the safety net. There's nothing hard about this. We've been there before and that is what we did in 1980 to fix a worse problem.

Romney plans to get us out of recession by using the same techniques that got us out of the mess that Carter left.

Obama plans to put to use the same techniques he used the last four years which put us even deeper into trouble than we were when he took office.

So which of the two do you think will be successful, and which do you think will be an even bigger failure than he already is?

I think President Obama made it very clear, when he boastfully reminded the Republicans that he won the election. That comment spoke volumes. His total lack knowledge as to the "workings" of our system of government is very evident. Too bad, it's the American people that suffer for his ignorance.

The GOP has no real incentive to "negotiate". For it, the only thing is winning, and shrinking the Federal Government. That is the real goal. Obama wants to increase taxes to fund job creation and balance the budget. The GOP wants to cut taxes for the top 2%, and claims to want to balance the budget by shrinking the Federal Government. 90% of all GOP House members have executed the Norquist Pledge, as has Romney and Ryan. So we can see just how far tax increases for the non performing job creators will get.

During the Deficit Ceiling Debacle we saw haw far the GOP would go, the result was them claiming they got 90% of what they wanted, or Sequestration, automatic cuts.

The entire GOP anti Deficit creation approach has been nothing but a sham, as now, suddenly, the GOP is on board, and behind the "impossible" Ryan/Romney Budget. which will create more havoc with the middle and working classes, grant more tax cuts to job creators, and run over 5 Trillion in Federal Deficits.

So, all only is has not been Federal Deficits that is driving the GOP, it is who is creating them, Policital Dogma, and making Obama a "One Term President" no matter what suffering the Nation suffers through making the GOP "Impossible Dream" come true. If the public suffers, they will be angry. If they are angry, the GOP believes it can manipulate the fact to influence them to vote Obama and the Democrats out.

The only fly in the ointment is that once again,, the GOP is attempting to impose trickle down economics upon the nation which has created half as many jobs as Democratic Administrations over the past 52 years, redistributed over 36% of all of the nations wealth to the non performing job creators as a result of their failed policies, created almost 10 Trillion in deficits, and shrunk the middle and higher paid working class.which all culminated in the 2008 Bush II Economic Meltdown.

Now, Romney and Ryan want to have a Bush 2.1 budget, and are claiming that "this time it will work, becuause we will also implement massive Federal Spending Cuts to slow the economy, and create a new recession, simultaneously shrinking the Federal Government, redistributing even more wealth to the top 2%, and creating even more deficits.

Sounds like a great plan does it not, if you are in the top 2%.?

Strange, the GOP creates the disasters, attempts to prolong the disasters to regain power in 2010 though 2012, and finally, the Democrats will have to fix it once the Voting Public wakes up to the fact that failed trickled down economics is why we are in this current economic mess, and the GOP simply wants to try it all over again.

And once again the community organizer makes promises to the American people that he won't and can't keep. His deadline to outline military cuts has come and gone. He gives his word to people and then he doesn't honor his committment.

When the community organizer says the truth is that it's going to take years to get us out of this mess, does that mean that when he promised to "get it done" in three years or it's a one term proposition, does that mean he was lying to us all along? Now he says he's telling us the truth?

Were this a republican currently in office, with gas prices at $4.00 per gallon, intentionally having put his boot on the neck of oil drilling in the gulf, shutting down Keystone, closing coal mines and refineries and spending trillions, the republican would've been so demonized there would be no chance of election. Why the special dispensation for a community organizer who made promises he knew he couldn't keep?

the 23,000,000 out of work don't want to wait another 4 years for the fantasy of "bottom up and middle out" economics to create private sector jobs with marxism.

You do realize that we are still stuck in "trickle-down economics" mode, right? So really you're making an argument against your cause by saying that this way sucks...because this is your way we're living right now.

Yay, my dose of Deceptions' insanity in the morning.

Perceptions: Sep. 11, 2012 - 5:16 AM EST

FoxFan: Sep. 11, 2012 - 7:07 AM EST

Reagan fixed a much worse economy in only two years.

The tea Party's twisted view of reality never ceases to amaze me. just because you make it up, doesn't mean it's true.

atc333: Sep. 11, 2012 - 8:19 AM EST

Strange, the GOP creates the disasters, attempts to prolong the disasters to regain power in 2010 though 2012, and finally, the Democrats will have to fix it once the Voting Public wakes up to the fact that failed trickled down economics is why we are in this current economic mess, and the GOP simply wants to try it all over again.

I have to hand it to them. They have so much power with propaganda, they can bold-face lie to the gullible Republican voters in this country, and instead of them getting mad, they rally around the lie and boast about it. I refuse to believe Rebublicans as a whole are that goddamn stupid, that they are just naive and gullible. But....the more I read from folks like Perceptions, FoxFan, et al, the more I worry about how they would vote against their own best interests.

Were this a republican currently in office, with gas prices at $4.00 per gallon, intentionally having put his boot on the neck of oil drilling in the gulf, shutting down Keystone, closing coal mines and refineries and spending trillions, the republican would've been so demonized there would be no chance of election.

I swear there are magic mushrooms being eaten by the sheep this morning. Poor "spring" is fully entrenched in alternate realities, apparently.

The biggest lie is the GOP claiming it can fix the exonomy with failed trickle down economics if you only give them once more chance to do so. After all, the foruth time is the charm. In 28 years, the GOP has created half as many jobs as the Democrats, and has resistributed more wealth to the top 2%, smd created more deficits than the Democrats, even including the consequences of the GOP/economic meltdown and blocking all attempts to pass jobs legislation by Obama.

Lets compare Clinton's record, complete with Monica, with the Bush II, Bush I, or Reagan records for job creation, or balancing the budget. I wold much rather have the Monica legacy, than the failed Bush I, and II and Reagan economic legacy.

All the GOP has shown us is how not to do it, which is cutting tax rated for the nonperfoming job creators, and redistributing wealth to the top 2%, and creating deficits while doing so. That is the legacy of Trickle down economics, and now you want to do it all over again?

One of Obama's biggest failings was ever buying into the GOPs fake debt ceiling crisis.

Their entire narative was nonsense and should have been treated as such. The debt ceiling has zilch to do with new spending. The entire foundation of their argument was the best way to stop new spending was not pay for the bills we've already run up. it was the absolute worst way to address the debt and for some stupid reason the dems accepted it as a valid debate.